Sport Car Racing in Finland, 1954

These are rare vintage photos show the racing of sport cars in Finland in 1954.

1951-3 Jaguar C-Type

1953 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider by Pininfarina at speed

1953 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider by Pininfarina

c.1953 Ferrari 212 by Giovanni Michelotti for Vignale

c.1953 Ferrari 250 MM Berlinetta by Pininfarina w/ Vignale 212 up ahead

c.1953 Ferrari 250 MM Berlinetta by Pininfarina

Rare Photographs of the Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the most iconic symbols of New York. Try imagining the skyline without the looming Gothic towers. Now try to imagine no bridges over the East River to connect the separate cities of Brooklyn and Manhattan and having to rely on overcrowded, unreliable, and generally unsafe ferries. This was the reality of 1850s New York. Yet the Brooklyn Bridge almost didn’t happen. Amid rumors of curses on the designer’s family, corruption, and death came amazing technological innovations and people doing incredible things.

The idea of putting a bridge across the East River wasn’t a new idea even in 1850. Plans were discussed, made, and scrapped regularly with strident opposition on basically every element, including the very big question of whether it was even possible to traverse the East River. And, if it was, then at 1,600 feet across, it’d be the longest span of bridge in the world at that time.

To say that German immigrant John A. Roebling was born to meet this challenge would be a gross overstatement and cliche, but in this case it seems to work. He had created new forms of steel cables that aided his designs of technically brilliant bridges in Cincinnati and Niagara Falls. In 1867, his plans for the “East River and Brooklyn Bridge” (its previous official name) were accepted by the Tammany Hall-controlled New York Bridge Company and he was named Chief Engineer.

Unknown. Brooklyn Bridge under construction. ca. 1880. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.11.8384

Unknown. Brooklyn Bridge under Construction. 1875. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.11.8424.

Unknown. 1881. Men walking on cables during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.11.8463.

Unknown. Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. ca. 1880. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.11.8412

S. A. (Silas A.) Holmes (1819 or 20-1886). New York Caisson nearly down. 1872. Museum of the City of New York. 57.15.4.

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Mugshot Doppelgänger: Here's What Current Celebrities Would Look Like as 1920s Criminals

There’s a strange connection that draws us into vintage photographs. Seeing doppelgängers (look-a-likes) in old pictures is our brain’s way of linking us to the past. We see what isn’t there - someone recognizable, a family member, maybe a friend, and then there are the ones that bear an uncanny resemblance to modern day celebrities. We’re so used to seeing celebrity faces on our TV, on blogs, and we even know what their mugshots look like. The tacky looking mugshots we have today are in stark contrast to the mugshots taken in the 1920s. Vintage mugshots have an eerie beauty to them that’s lost in current mugshot photography. What would celebrity mugshots, the ones we’ve become accustomed to seeing on TMZ, look like if instead they were taken in the 1920s?

Welcome to this photographic archive of celebrity criminal history. It’s a world similar to our own just shifted a little. It’s a site we like to call, Mugshot Doppelgänger. Created by Art Director, Michael Jason Enriquez, advertising student at Art Center College of Design, and currently a creative intern at ad agency RPA in Santa Monica. So here's a little background on the project:

“Glass plate negatives were unearthed in Sydney, Australia's police archives, I think, in 1989. They were mugshots of whores, gangsters, fraudsters, and crooks from the twenties. They made the rounds on different blogs a couple years ago.

“I remember seeing them and thinking how beautiful they were and how cheap the mugshots we have today look. The vintage mugshots were carefully composed, and it looks like the criminals are in wardrobe. Celebrities can't help but pose for the camera and that's evident in some of their mugshots, but as glamourous as our celebrities are they can't compete with how cool these 1920's criminals looked. Celebrity mugshots are plastered all over the web, on magazines, and in newspapers. They are the lowest form of photography, and yet they are everywhere. I wanted to see what it would look like if you took modern day celebrity mugshots and turned them into something worth looking at.

“I started with Lindsay Lohan because she had a lot of different mugshots to choose from. When I paired her up with a vintage mugshot that would work with her features it reminded me of the vintage doppelgänger of Nick Cage. Everyone thought that he was a vampire who lived forever or had a time machine. So I did more from Mel Gibson to Khloe Kardashian. That's pretty much how Mugshot Doppelgänger was born.”

Lindsay Lohan

Mel Gibson

Nick Nolte

Nicole Richie

Paris Hilton

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Vi and Liz, 1922

June 13, 1922. Washington, D.C. “Viola LaLonde and Elizabeth Van Tuyl.”

(National Photo Company Collection glass negative)

Old Photographs of Canada From the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

The photographs from the Notman Photographics Archives are a priceless testimony to the history of Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries, from its people to its landscapes...

William Notman (1826-1891), his sons, and the photographic studio he founded in Montreal, documented Canadian life and her people from 1856 to 1936. The Notman studio, among others, was commissioned by William Van Horne (general manager of the CPR) to record the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and to show Canadians the wonders of the western scenery and the majestic Rocky Mountain ranges, with a view to encouraging immigration to the West.

A quiet nook, Victoria Park, Truro, NS, probably 1915

Lighthouse at Matane, QC, 1915

C.P.R. Mount Stephen House, Field, BC, 1909

Banff Springs Hotel, AB, 1904

Yonge Street looking north, Toronto, ON, about 1890

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Surreal Portraits Splicing Other People's Pictures

Taking classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations, British artist John Stezaker makes collages to give old images a new meaning.

By adjusting, inverting and slicing separate pictures together to create unique new works of art, Stezaker explores the subversive force of found images. Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous sitters with caves, hamlets, or waterfalls, making for images of eerie beauty.

"Shoot The Chute" Ride in Coney Island, 1890s

The Shoot The Chute ride in Coney Island was built by Paul Boyton and Thomas Polk around 1895 for Sea Lion Park at Coney Island, with replicas of similar chute rides popping up all over the U.S. at the time. These early rides had a “flat bottom boat [that] was pulled up the ramp by cable... In the ride at Sea Lion Park, the passengers arrived at the top by elevator. The bottom of the ramp curved upwards, causing the boat to skip across the water until it came to a stop. The boat was guided to a landing by a boatman on board.” Naturally, those taking the plunge were fully clothed in head-to-toe dress, as was the style of the time.